The death toll due to rat fever (Leptospirosis) mounts to 66 in Kerala following demise of 11 people on September 3  in various places in flood-battered State.

According to various reports, 842 people are suspected to have contracted the bacterial infection with 372 confirmed cases. The death toll is now spiraling everyday in flood affected areas since August 15. Following the epidemic-like situation, the State Health Department has sounded an alert across 13 of the 14 districts against rat fever -- a bacterial disease spread through the urine of infected animals and can be transmitted to humans, official sources said.

As a few people deputed for cleaning in flood affected areas were succumbed to the infection, people are advised to take preventive medicine (doxycycline), which are made available in all the hospitals in the affected areas, it added.
Meanwhile, Kerala Health Minister KK Shylaja claimed that the rat fever outbreak is under control in the State and there is no cause for panic.